It's a far less-well-known VoIP provider than Vonage, but PhonePower ($19.95 per month) not only offers phone service at a significantly lower rate, but also adds at least one benefit over its better-known competitor—it lets you make phone calls from your computer using its softphone app—without charging extra for the privilege. PhonePower may be a little less slick than Vonage, but it offers a few more features at a lower price.

Pricing and Start Up

PhonePower's entry-level plan costs $19.95 a month for unlimited U.S. and Canada calling, but if you commit to two years that goes down to $14.95, and if you prepay one year, it ends up costing you just $8.33 per month, and you can renew at that rate indefinitely. It's a good deal compared with Vonage, which has a 1-year intro rate of $9.99 per month and charges $25.99 per month thereafter.

PhonePower has a 30-day money-back guarantee if you're not happy with the service. At signup, there's also a $14.95 shipping fee (if you need the two-line adapter sent) and $3.43 in taxes and fees every month, which brings the actual cost closer to Vonage's. For this review, I signed up for the Unlimited World Plus plan, at $24.95 per month, which offers free unlimited calling to 75 countries.

The signup form is slick, with a green checkmark appearing in each box as you successfully complete it. There are three steps—Your Information, Service Details, and Confirm Order, and I had to enter my address for 911 calling. I like how the charges are clearly displayed. You can keep your current phone number or get a new one. You can also choose a phone number in a different region than your 911 area, and even a Canadian number. One quibble is that I couldn't enter a string of numbers to try to find, for example, a number that spelled out a name, as Skype lets you do. Once you have your number, you choose whether you want PhonePower to send you a two-line adapter; if you have your own hardware, you'll save the $14.95 shipping fee mentioned above.

After entering payment info, you set up an online user account name and password. I like that this is a required part of setup, so you get online access right from the start. After agreeing by typing in my name again, I got an email confirming my new number. It takes from 3 to 10 business days for an account to be activated. Fortunately, "activated" just means that your billing period starts; my actual service was available almost immediately.

Soft Phone

PhonePower's included softphone functionality is a distinct advantage over what's offered by Vonage, which requires a separate $9.99 subscription for its softphone. The PhonePower softphone looks sort of like a BlackBerry mobile phone on the screen, as shown below.

It installs a Web browser plugin similar to Skype's Click-to-Call, which detects phone numbers on webpages and lets you phone them up directly.

From the Web, you can play your voice messages, review call logs, and set up speed-dial numbers—the last of which is not available in Vonage. The site is less elegantly designed than Vonage's, but it gets the job done.

Physical Phone Setup

Just like Vonage, PhonePower sent me a small box containing an Ethernet-to-phone adapter with clear installation instructions right on top when I opened the box. In this case, the device was an Obihai OBi302, but the company has also sent out boxes from Innomedia and Grandstream. Also like the Vonage box, the Obihai had clearly marked ports on the back for two phone lines, Internet, and LAN. If that's not enough help, PhonePower's site gives full instructions on setup.

One difference is that the PhonePower box also includes a USB port, though the quick start guide doesn't make it clear what this is for, aside from saying you may connect an external storage device to it. Obihai's site says you can plug a USB Ethernet adapter into this to save you from having to lay cable to the adapter, which is a nice plus, but it only works with Obihai's OBiWiFi USB adapter, which you can get online for about $20.